Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Wendel's Q1 2023 trading update conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star-one-one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. You can also ask your question on the webcast. Olivier Allot, Director of Financial Communication and Data Intelligence will read them. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Jérôme Michiels, Wendel Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Director of Wendel Growth. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you very much, and good afternoon, or good morning, ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who aren't based in the U.S. Welcome to this trading update on Q1 2023. I will go through a very short presentation, after which I will be happy to take your questions. I'm moving to page two, with the key highlights of the quarter. If I were to characterize this quarter, in just a couple of words, I would say it has been reasonably strong and very busy. Consolidated sales have grown double digits to about EUR 2.2 billion, which is a result of a strong like-for-like performance of our company that's +8.4% consolidated. Net asset value is slightly up at +2.8% versus the end of last year at EUR 172.5 per share. As you will see, the increase is almost entirely attributable to the increase of the share prices of our listed assets. At the level of portfolio companies, there has been continued M&A activity. Stahl finalize the acquisition of ISG, further reinforcing its position as the global leader in the field of specialty coatings and treatments. Constantia announced two acquisitions, representing EUR 45 million of additional sales on a 12-month basis, and it's very much in line with the selective acquisition strategy that Constantia is pursuing. Lastly, we have been very active at Wendel level as well with the successful issue of a EUR 750 million extendable bond into Bureau Veritas share and the signing of an exclusivity agreement with a view to acquire Scalian, as well as three direct investments that have been closed by Wendel Growth around the first quarter. All of the above is very in line with the strategic orientation that we announced as part of our 2022 earnings mid-March. Let me now move to slide 3 and give you a little bit more color on the Q1 revenues. Overall revenues have reached EUR 2.181 billion, which is 10.4% more than last year. This results from organic growth, 8.4%, 2.2% scope effect at portfolio companies, and a slightly negative foreign exchange variation, which is a negative 1.1% at Bureau Veritas and mildly to very positive at other companies. On a line-by-line basis, Bureau Veritas, unsurprisingly, has been the strongest contributor on all dimensions, with 8.5% organic growth, led by sustained growth for sustainability and energy transition across all Bureau Veritas businesses. The growth has been driven by the vast majority of the portfolio. Marine and offshore is up 13.5%, industry 12.5%, certification 11.2%, buildings and infrastructure 9%, and agri-food and commodities +7.7%. Less than a sixth of the portfolio, which is consumer product services, declined at -3.5% organically due to fewer new product launches and volumes. Based on this strong quarter, Bureau Veritas reconfirmed its guidance for 2023. Constantia Flexibles has had another very strong quarter, with Q1 sales totaling EUR 527 million, up 19% on an organic basis and 22% on a reported basis. This has been very strong in terms of activity and in terms of profitability and cash generation. The sales growth was driven by strong volume growth in the pharma market and low single-digit growth in the consumer market, combined to further price increases compensating the impact of cost inflation. Stahl has had a slower start of the year as the activity in the global coatings industry was generally muted this first quarter. Stahl experienced low volumes across its divisions, only partly compensated by favorable price trends and foreign exchange. The order book, however, started to rebound towards the end of the first quarter. The company expects a progressive rebound starting in Q2 2023 and continuing towards the end of the year in the wake of a normalization along the supply chain and the end of the stopping at clients. CPI grew quite significantly again at almost 15% organic growth on Q1. This growth was underpinned by the expansion of the installed base of certified instructors, CIs, as well as the related growth in renewal and peer training by these CIs. This growth was also driven by the expansion of the program offerings, which provides certified instructors with even more options for dispensing specialized or topic-specific training. At ACAMS, I would like to spend a little bit of time on this, as the comparison of last year is not shown in the table. We have closed the acquisition, as you know, during the month of March last year, which means that we have started to consolidate ACAMS after Q1 or during Q1. We don't show comparison as the scope is not the same. When you look at revenue generated last year around the quarter, we see a decrease of minus 14%, which was anticipated by management as the second-largest annual conference that ACAMS organized in 2022 was held during Q1, whereas it's going to be held in Q2 this year. We had a large contract at the beginning of Q1 2022 with very large activity that transitioned to a more normal level over the course of 2022 and in 2023. When we restate for this event on the prior year, we would be looking at a +9.6% year-on-year growth for the first quarter, which reflects the momentum in the enterprise sales effort, notably in the U.S. and in Europe, and the increased adoption by Chinese banks in preparation for a planned upcoming regulatory evolution. Let's now move to page 4 for the net asset value, which stands at EUR 172.5 per share at the end of March. Few changes from last December, apart from the share price of our listed companies that, and the issue of the exchangeable bond into Bureau Veritas shares, which increased our cash balance and our gross debt by EUR 750 million respectively. This is reflected in the numbers you see on this page with EUR 1.6 billion in cash and EUR 2.16 billion of gross debt. The discount to NAV has slightly narrowed to 42.6%, down from the high point of September 2022, when it was closer to 50%. On page 5, as you will see sequentially, our net asset value is slightly up by 2.8% or EUR 4.6 per share. The change is mostly explained by the increase of the share prices of our listed assets. BV is up 6.5% year-to-date, whereas IHS is up 15.4% year-to-date. The value of our unlisted assets slightly decreased, which is only the reflection of the decrease of market multiples used for the valuation of these unlisted assets over the period. We have not seen any upward or downward revision of currency and outlook in the portfolio, which is not surprising at this point in time and as Q1 current trading has generally been in line with the budget. On page 6, looking at our balance sheet and cash position, you see quite a robust picture. Following the issue of the EUR 750 million bond, our cash position exceeds EUR 1.6 billion, which could be complemented by an additional EUR 750 million through the undrawn credit facility. Our total liquidity is at EUR 2.3 billion. On the liability side, we have EUR 2.15 billion of bond debt outstanding, with a limited average weighted cost of 2% and an average maturity of five years. Our loan-to-value ratio stands at 6.4% at the end of March and should increase to about 12% pro forma of the realization of the acquisition of Scalian later this year. Speaking of which, on page 7, I before wrapping up this presentation, I take the opportunity to go through the main features of Scalian again. As you know, we have just announced an exclusivity agreement with the intent to acquire this company, which is a leading European consulting firm specialized on digital technologies, project management, and business transformation. Scalian expects to generate EUR 510 million in sales LTM as of the end of June 2023, and about EUR 74 million in EBITDA. The track record of this company has been very robust, with 12% organic growth per annum on average since 2015, thanks to the very strong management team and the unique positioning of Scalian. The enterprise value is EUR 965 million, and Wendel would invest EUR 550 million in equity. This is fully in line in terms of size and in terms of investment CD with our strategy. We intend to play our role as active partner and contribute our expertise in terms of developing global leaders in business services, both through organic growth and M&A, which is a strong part of the value creation plan here. We are very happy with this opportunity to invest again in France and to back the CEO, Yvan Chabanne, and the strong management team he has assembled. To wrap up on page 8, I would say this has been a good quarter, both in terms of trading and in terms of executing on our strategic orientation. We will continue to focus very much on the trading of our companies, given the uncertain and challenging environment that still prevails. We are progressing on our roadmap in terms of capital deployment and have seized the opportunity to improve our liquidity through the issuance of the exchangeable bond. In the next few months, we will remain fully dedicated to execute our strategic orientation, and we report to you as part of our H one results late July. Thank you for your attention, and I will now take your question. Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will now take the first question. It comes from the line of Arnaud Palliez from CIC Market Solutions. Yes, good afternoon. I have two questions, if I may. The first one is on ACAMS. I would like to know what is the take in review of the conferences, especially the one that was postponed to Q2. Can you give us some indications about the importance of these conferences for ACAMS and for its reviews? The second question is about Constantia. I would like to know what was the price increase, the price impact on their review in Q1, because the organic growth, of course, is significant, and I would like to know if these price increases are mostly on the food products or on different ones. Sure. Your question. I hear some feedback. Yes. Can you go on mute, maybe? Thank you. Your first question on ACAMS is about the magnitude of the conference at ACAMS. The timing results in about shy of 20% impact compared to the revenue of the quarter, which is quite important, as you can imagine. Regarding your second question about Constantia and the price impact at Constantia, as I said, the volumes grew, I would say, modestly at both divisions, slightly more at pharma than at consumer. The price effects were very strong at both divisions during the quarter. When you look at the organic growth, I would say most of it comes from price, but there is a little bit of help as well. On the volume side, both are positive at consumer and pharma, with a slightly better higher impact at pharma. Every year or there are several ones? Sorry? There's a conference? Yeah, there is just one conference organized. No. Organized by ACAMS or there are several ones during the year? No, there are several conferences. Can you go on mute? Thank you. There are several conferences, this one is one of the largest. I have two big conferences in mind, I think there are also some smaller conferences. This one is really moving the needle when it goes from one quarter to the other. As I said, impact can represent up to 20% of quarterly revenue, that's quite sizable. This is, as I said, one of the largest. It's the second-largest, actually. Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. There are no questions on the phone at this time. Please continue. Yes. Okay. Thank you. There are questions from the web. Are you relatively confident with the present valuation of the unlisted assets? Do you expect a negative latency effect in both valuations? Thank you for your question. Yes, we are confident. The NAV valuation is a very thorough process. We spend a reasonable time on quite a sizable amount of time on each asset, actually. We are updating our views on multiples, and we look closely at the peers that we use for the valuation. We have a third-party valuation expert performing its own valuation, and we look at the variations between the two. This is really something that we spend a lot of time on and feel comfortable. Do we expect any change going forward? Well, there are two aspects that can change valuation, or the two major ones, I would say. The first one is the trading activity, which has an impact on EBITDA and in the end on net debt, obviously, which is a key driver here. The second one is market multiples. As I said, in terms of EBITDA, we haven't seen any revisions during the first quarter to the current year's budget. All companies are sticking to their budget. They have not revised upwards their business. They have not revised downwards their business. It's very difficult to forecast on a quarter to quarter basis because most of our companies have a limited order book. They have visibility over the next quarter at best, but not beyond that. Especially in these times of heightened volatility, and uncertain, I would say macro environment, it's very difficult to forecast whether there will be any sizable change on the upside or on the downside to the EBITDA and EBIT that we use for this year. At this point in time, we have no reason to believe that budgets have to be adjusted. Regarding the market multiples, I think it's anybody's guess, very difficult to forecast as well. Especially as, you know, we are using industry multiples which do not generally reflect the broad market. I mean, for Constantia, we are using packaging companies multiples, Stahl and specialty chemicals, and more diversified chemicals and CPI we are using, you know, the governance, risk and compliance sector multiples. It's a subset of the market, each time which moves. It's not moving in sync. It's very difficult obviously to make a guess to where these multiples will go in the next few months. I guess it very much depends on the macro environment and the interest rate, et cetera. As I said, apart from that, no strong variations to be expected because the rest is really mechanical. The one thing that I can say is that we see no reason to change our views on the trading and the budgets of our companies at this point in time for 2023, neither on the upside nor on the downside. Thank you. We have questions on Stahl. Can you elaborate on factors explaining Stahl's weaker performance this quarter? To what extent was it industry-wide, or is it affecting Stahl disproportionately? Is it more linked to leather or to performance coatings? Is it explained by automotive sector or China? Thank you. Well, as I said, it's a broad, an industry-wide phenomenon that we have observed during the first quarter. Stahl is in terms of organic growth down 12.5%. When you look at other players like BASF is down 13.2%, so slightly a little bit more than Stahl. Whilst Elements, which is another, you know, comparable company, is down 7% organic. And this company is referring to the weak demand in electronics and in the Asian markets overall. At Stahl, we've where most of the surprise came, I would say, is on the coating side. Leather has been more in line with expectations and even slightly higher than expectations. And the comments, the read across that we got from these players really points to a industry-wide phenomenon where, you know, volumes have been affected during the first quarter. At the end of the quarter, we see the order book of sales slightly increasing, which is positive news and which, you know, gives us a good confidence on Q2. We are monitoring that. And I think again, the read across from other players is also pointing at a better situation in Q2. Thank you. We have two questions on ADV. For unlisted assets, what their material impacts from time scope effects or aggregates or changes in the comparables company? About comparables, can you elaborate on the one you use for CPI and ACAMS? Sure. At this point in time, there is no change in time scope. I mean, at this point in time, we use 2022 actual numbers and 2023 forecasts. Exactly as at the end of December. From December to March, there is no change in terms of timing. There can only be a change if we change our views on current year. As I said, 2023, no changes. We have been using the same numbers for our companies as at the end of December. The only changes relate to the multiples which have on average decrease, and it depends which company you're looking, it's pretty much across the board. I mean, at Stahl chemical companies, I've seen their multiples decrease slightly and generally, at ACAMS and Cflex, we have the same phenomenon. The rest is really, you know, the rest of the changes are related to foreign exchange. For instance, when we look at our U.S. companies, CPIs and CPI and ACAMS, but it's pretty minor. Regarding the comparable companies that we use for Constantia, for I think you put CPI and ACAMS, we use a broad set of governance, risk and compliance players. We are using quite a lot of companies actually, about 12 for CPI, diversified in terms of type of services that they provide and in terms of geography and a slightly shorter list of peers for ACAMS. We have more like 7 companies. We think these companies and this sector governance, risk and compliance reflects the type of multiple on average that these companies could be fairly valued as. Thank you. A question on Scalian. Can you elaborate on the acquisition of the company? Was it a competitive bid? What were the big contenders, their profile? Well, we do not comment, as you can imagine, on this, specifically on this processes. Yes, it was an option. Although it was, I guess, a limited option, involving strategic players as well as private equity firms, as well as strategic players backed by private equity firms. It was, I think, an asset that attracted a lot of interest, so which is not untypical for companies of this quality. Given the growth potential, given the profitability, the quality of the business model, one should expect to see a cut-throat process when it comes to buying these companies. This was very much the case. Thank you. Two questions on the listed assets. What is Wendel's commitment vis-à-vis Tarkett? Is it still a long-term investment or a disposable one? There is no change in terms of our commitment to target. We have made this investment in 2021, and we currently. Excuse me. It's still listed, and it's part of our listed investment. There is absolutely no change in terms of our commitment to this, to this company. Thank you. Question about BV. What is Wendel's assessment on BV's transition towards edge computing, IoT and automation in a certain certification usage? Can you give the share of sales and growth linked to these new technological evolutions? I think you should put this question to BV directly because I'm not sure that I can be able to give you an answer. BV is involved, obviously with the advent of IoT and the certification of these new technologies. As you can imagine, they are large players within this market on the consumer side of things. They are also, I would say, increasingly involved on the cyber part of certification. As you might be aware, they made an acquisition, I think in 2021 in a company called Secura, and out of which they are expanding their cyber offering. To have precise numbers, I think you should reach out to the company directly because I don't have the exact information. Thank you. We have now, I think, 2 more questions by phone. Thank you. We will now take the next question. It comes from the line of Alexandre Gérard from CIC. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Well, good afternoon, Jérôme. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. First question is on IHS. We very rarely talk about IHS because they always publish their numbers with a delay. The stock has been rebounding sharply recently. Can you start maybe to feel a renewed interest from investors on that company? Can you tell us about their maybe noticeable positive and negative achievements recently? That's my first question. Second question is on Stahl. I must admit that I'm a bit lost regarding their like for like, I would say, ex ICP trading for the full year, how do you see the revenues and EBITDA for the full year ex ICP, up or down compared to 2022? My last question is on the Wendel Lab. Have you seen any material changes in the valuation of some of the assets included in the Wendel Lab over the first quarter of the year? Thank you. Thanks, Alexandre. Yeah, regarding your first question on IHS, yes, you're right. The stock has been increasing quite strongly and even stronger since the end of March. I referred in my presentation to +15% between end of December and end of March. When I look at the current levels, year-to-date, it's up 50% at $9.4 and change today, which mostly results from a better than expected 2023 guidance. I think 2022 results came very much in line. These were strong results, but anticipated by the market. I think 2023 guidance came at the top of the range of the street consensus. Do we see more interest from investors? Difficult to tell. I think the trading volumes are, have been on the rise for sure since the IPO. It's now less thinly traded than before, we are still looking at pretty small volumes as, you know, the free float is limited. We always said, told you that it would take a few quarters before the market, you know, gets more confident in the ability of management to deliver on their results. It's happening gradually. Nigeria remains a difficult place despite the general election that took place recently. There are still a lot of issues and some of them still pending. If you think of the dual currency, for instance, it's still open, and it's certainly a key question mark for investors when looking at IHS. On the execution side, results were good. They extended the maturity of their facilities. They refinance locally. They are doing a good job at managing the capital structure and executing their strategy. Based on the strong elements of execution and results, it has lift the sharp rise, and it has been good. I hope it will continue. Regarding Stahl, you inquired about the budget for this year, which is a nice try from you, Alexandre Girard, I'm not going to be more specific on that whether it includes or excludes ICP. The only thing I can tell you is that Stahl still has very healthy margins. We expect synergies to be generated through the acquisition of ICP, which further complements the position of Stahl in the coatings industry and in a very attractive market. Management is fully dedicated to the integration of ICP. I'm sure you will have the occasion to have a conversation with Martin as he will I'm sure attend our investor day later this year. I can't be more specific about the expectations in terms of budget. Trading is strong, despite the first quarter, which has been softer than expected, as I said, but in line with main peers, and with some encouraging trends at the end of March, to be confirmed in the later part of the year. Remaining on remaining question on Wendel Growth, what are we seeing? Well, we are very focused on our three investments that have been made quite recently. We still see a lot of opportunities with companies experiencing good growth. I mean, the best companies are still growing at 50%-100%. This is the type of companies we are looking at. Some need to raise and are in discussion with us. Capital raising has been much more limited, as you can imagine, given the environment. I think most companies are focusing on their cash situation and do not want to come to the market as they risk, you know, down round. I think we are very happy that one of our investments, AlphaSense, raised again at very favorable terms. I think it's still difficult to raise, especially from these types of transactions, very large, except if you have a very, very strong growth profile and a very strong positioning, which is the case of AlphaSense and some of the companies that we see. There are less situations than in 2021, that's for sure. All right. Thank you, Jérôme. Thank you. Thank you. We will now take the next question. It comes from the line of Patrick Jussan from SG. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Yes, good afternoon. In fact, my question was exactly the same as the one ask ed by Alexandre on IHS. Okay. Sure. Thank you, Patrick. Thank you. I have additional questions from the web. Could you come back and elaborate on the trend of valuation multiples for non-listed assets, especially for Scalian and CPI? What is your view on Tarkett as of now? Does it make any sense to keep it listed? On Scalian and CPI, as I said, we have on Scalian we have a negative impact related to market multiple. On CPI it's negligible, multiples were pretty much in line between December and March. Whereas for Scalian we have we have a market multiple effect which is more pronounced. I mean, overall, the value of the private equity investment is, you know, is down by maybe 2% or 3%. It's very small. I mean, we are looking at EUR 3.4 billion down for by 2%. It's really negligible, but this results from some site movement in terms of market multiples at some of our companies. The second question was about. Your view on Tarkett? On Tarkett. On the listed status where we have not changed our views on Tarkett since the end of the offer summer 2021. We are not we're in a different state of mind. Thank you. I have no more questions. Thank you. Thank you everyone for your time and attention and we will come back to you at the general meeting on the 15th of June and then on July 27th for the H1 results. Thank you very much and have a good day.